“The CDSI has urged the public to provide full support during the two-week process of population counting that will end on May 12,” said Abdullateef Al-Khamees, a spokesperson for the Central Department of Statistics and Information (CDSI), on Monday.
Al-Khamees said that all census enumerators would carry official badges and ID cards. He added that the results of the census would help government agencies map out future plans and policies.
“It is therefore important for the public to give the correct answers so that we have the right figures and statistics,” he said. A large contingent of over 35,000 enumerators and 10,000 team supervisors has been deployed across the Kingdom. Enumerators will first visit compounds, hotels, hospitals, prison houses and other public places on Tuesday evening before they start knocking on people’s homes on Wednesday.
The CDSI has also warned its enumerators and census officials to comply with its code of conduct or face stiff penalties.
Al-Khamees also called on illegal residents to provide information, adding that the data gathered would not be used to deport them. He said that the census would enable the country to ascertain the exact number of people in the country. There are 5,000 enumerators carrying out the census in Jeddah alone.
“There is a coordinated joint security plan with the passport and the police department in the city. This will ensure that census enumerators carry out their duty under safe conditions, especially in neighborhoods deemed dangerous,” said Saeed Al-Faqih, a CDSI official in Jeddah.
“The first key phase has been completed, which included the listing of all residential and commercial buildings, in addition to abandoned buildings and homes in rural and remote areas.” According to Al-Faqih, the police will be asked to immediately assist in situations where people refuse to disclose information to census staffers.
In the Eastern Province, the local CDSI branch worked with the Ministry of Defense and Aviation to survey the locations of nomads and desert workers in the Empty Quarter using an aircraft earlier this month.
Local CDSI Director Abdul Rahman Al-Thimairi confirmed about 3,000 enumerators had been allocated for the region.
He said their training, as with enumerators across the Kingdom, consisted of lectures and workshops where they were educated on the best methods of counting people, how to fill out the 59-point questionnaire and how to deal with families reluctant to give information. According to Al-Thimairi, the enumerators also received training on the possible mistakes that might happen while filling in the questionnaire and how to correct them. According to recent figures from the CDSI, the population of the Eastern Province is increasing by 2.2 percent annually.
The figures reveal that the number of people living in the Eastern Province was 762,000 in 1974. This number rose to 2.575 million in 1992, 3.36 million in 2004, before reaching 3.545 million in 2007.
Saudi Arabia is conducting its 4th National Census for Population and Housing together with other Gulf Cooperation Cou
ncil (GCC) countries as part of an agreement endorsed by the GCC Supreme Council. The Saudi government formally launched the census on Feb. 9.
— With input from
Sultan Al-Tamimi, Ghazanfar Ali Khan, and Faiz Al-Mazrouie
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